Dr. Swarnavel Eswaran Pillai is an associate professor in the English and MI (Media and Information) Departments at Michigan State University. He is a graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India, the premier Film School in Asia and the prestigious University of Iowa. His documentaries include Unfinished Journey: A City in Transition (2012), Migrations of Islam (2014), Hmong Memories at the Crossroads (2015), and Nagapattinam: Waves from the Deep (2018). His research focuses on the history, theory, and production of documentaries, and the specificity of Tamil cinema and its complex relationship with Hollywood as well as popular Hindi films. His books are Cinema: Sattagamum Saalaramum (Nizhal, 2013), an anthology of essays on documentaries and experimental films in Tamil and Madras Studios: Narrative, Genre, and Ideology in Tamil Cinema (Sage Publications, 2015).